Several events are converging: the Democrat and Julia’s apartment above are consumed by flames, though other downtown businesses are saved; Sammy Bushey has retrieved a handgun and returned to the hospital; and Thurston Marshall, the out-of-town professor, has volunteered to help at the hospital, where he is surprisingly well-versed and effective. Big Jim Rennie taunts Julia as she watches her paper and her possessions burn, but he places the blame squarely on her friend, Barbie, and later insinuates that she herself might have been involved. At the same time, Sammy hunts down her tormentors at the hospital and shoots Georgie Roux and Frank DeLesseps. She then turns the gun on herself. Thurston and the other nurses run to the horrific scene, but there is nothing to be done.

Andy Sanders, who has lost both his wife and his daughter in the drama of the Dome, sits in Barbie’s apartment with a bottle of OxyContin intended for Andrea Grinnell. He is contemplating death by suicide when he is interrupted by his cell phone ringing. The hospital needs his help in dealing with terrible scene of Sammy, Georgie, and Frank. When Andy arrives at the hospital, he realizes that there is little he can do except inform Phil Bushey, aka the Chef, that his wife is dead after undergoing a terrible assault.